Brussels, 05/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission recently presented national experts with the scoreboard of member state implementation of direct aid and application of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provisions. The statistical data used is valid up to 23 January 2015.
Transfers between pillars. The net result of all the transfers (possible update in 2017 for 2018-2019) represents a transfer from pillar one (direct aid) to pillar 2 (rural development) of €3 billion over six years.
11 countries made transfers from the 1st and 2nd pillars for a total of €6.3 billion: France (3% of the total envelope of direct payments from the country in 2015, then 3.3% from 2016-2020), Latvia (7.5% a year from 2015-2020), United Kingdom (10.8% a year), Belgian (2.3% in 2016, then 3.5% in 2017 and 2018 and 4.6% in 2019 and 2020), Czech Republic (3.4% from 2016-2018, then 1.3% in 2019 and in 2020), Denmark (5% in 2016, then 6% in 2017 and 7% between 2018-2020), Germany (4.5% a year from 2016-2020), Estonia 6.1% in 2016, 14.3% in 2017 and 15% from 2018-2020), Greece (5% a year from 2016-2020), Netherlands (from 4.0% in 2016 to 4.3% in 2020), Romania (1.8% in 2016, 2.3% in 2017, 2.2% in 2018 but zero in 2019 and 2020).
5 countries made transfers in the opposite direction (from rural development to direct aid: €3.3 billion): Croatia (15% from 2015-2020), Malta (from 0.8% in 2016 to 3.8% in 2020), Poland (25% a year from 2015-2020), Slovakia (21.3% a year from 2015-2020) and Hungary (15% from 2016-2020).
Direct payments system. 10 countries continue to use the simplified system (all the new EU members, apart from Malta, Slovenia and Croatia). 6 countries have a regionalised direct payments system (Germany, Greece, Spain, France, United Kingdom but not Northern Ireland or Finland). 8 countries use a “redistributive” payment system (Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania).
Convergence of aid. In 7 countries, a national or regional flat rate will gradually be introduced: Germany, French Corsica, Malta and England in 2015, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Scotland and Wales by 2019 and Sweden in 2020. Among the countries that chose partial convergence, eight opted for the possibility of limiting payment reductions to 30%: Greece, Spain, France (except Corsica), Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Belgium.
Payment reductions. 6 countries will not have any reduction in payments (Belgium, Germany, France, Croatia, Lithuania and Romania). 9 countries will set a ceiling (100% reduction) in the amount of direct aid between €150,000 and €600,000 (Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ireland, Greece, two regions of the United Kingdom, Italy, Flanders in Belgium). 15 countries apply the minimum reduction of 5% for amounts above €150,000 and withdraw salaries before applying a reduction in aid (Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Austria and Slovenia). The estimated amount of the payments reduction is €558 million over the 2015-2019 period, which is not a lot.
Coupled payments. 27 countries (except Germany) use coupled payments (link to production levels): coupled payments will reach 10% of the total envelope in EU aid in 2015. 9 countries use this coupled payment at levels below 8% (Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria and the United Kingdom). 11 countries use the maximum 13% level in coupled payments, of which nine use an additional 2% (oilseed sector), which means a total of 15% (15% for Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia). Belgium (17%), Finland (20%) and Portugal (21%) have asked the Commission if they can go above this (Malta is an exception, with 57% of coupled payments).
42% of couple payments in 2015 will affect the beef meat sector in 24 countries, which is worth around €1.7 billion; milk and milk products (20% in 18 countries), sheep and goat meat (11% in 22 countries), oilseeds (12% in 16 countries), fruit and vegetables 5% in 19 countries) and sugar beets (4% in 10 countries).
Targeted coupled payments were used in the United Kingdom (beef, veal and mutton), in Italy (olive oil, oil seeds, leguminous vegetables, durum wheat and soya) and Poland (hops).
Active farmer clause. 8 countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Romania and Scotland) have added activities to the negative list (activities that can not receive direct aid). The majority of countries set the exemption threshold at €5,000.
Greening of aid. 5 countries (Austria, Ireland, Poland, France and the Netherlands) asked to be able to activate an equivalence system, two of these countries with a certification regime (France and the Netherlands). (LC)